by Mark Anthony
As with most folks, Ailea’s bedroom showed more of her personality than did those rooms that the public might visit. The upstairs room smelled of lavender; bunches of the fragrant herb, tied with gray ribbons, had been laid on the midwife’s dressing table, next to her tortoise-shell brush and the silver-inlaid combs that had held her braid tight on fancy occasions. Blackened iron hooks, a gift from Flint, held the gathered skirts she sewed in profusion: purple, red, green, and bright yellow. On a nearby table was a new beige shirt, brother to the green one and the blue one she’d made for Flint earlier. A skein of brown embroidery thread and a needle waited by the new garment.
A large feather bed, laid with a purple and green coverlet, stood in the center of the room, while a smaller pallet had been erected in an alcove near the fireplace. Before the hearth sat an ancient wooden rocking chair, scuffed and scarred but polished to a sheen. The dwarf stepped into the alcove and saw the lamps at the head and foot of the pallet, a cauldron on the hearth, and thick piles of sheets, towels, and swaddling rags on a night table nearby. A basket cradle swung from a long iron hook set deep into the ceiling. This was, Flint realized, the alcove to which so many elven women had come to give birth.
Several hours later, as shadows began to lengthen into late afternoon, Flint finished going through Ailea’s private records, searching for clues but feeling like a thief. Most of her pieces of parchment referred to births or to herbal remedies that had been effective in treating particular ailments. A search of the eight-drawer chiffonnier next to the feather bed yielded no information that, as far as he could see, had any link to the crime.
Then Flint saw the painting, in a delicate silver and gold frame, that sat atop the chiffonnier. The sidepieces of the frame had been rubbed shiny, as though the owner had often stood here, beholding the painting. He touched a thick finger to it; the paint was faded and old—older, he knew, than he was. It showed a young elf, slight of build, with round, greenish brown eyes and a face like a cat’s, standing next to an elderly human man with a square jaw and clothes that proclaimed him to be a farmer. A tidy but small house, with white petunias framing the front path, stood in the background. The two figures were holding hands, and the expression on the faces managed to reflect both great content and overbearing sadness at the same time.
Feeling suddenly as though he were peering through a window into a private scene, Flint returned the painting to the chiffonnier and stepped briskly around the bed and back to the stairway. There was nothing here that contained the slightest clue pertaining to Lord Xenoth.
Downstairs, as twilight grew in the street outside, Flint found himself once more picking up the painting that Ailea had been holding when she died. It wasn’t Tanis’s portrait; the dwarf had found that one upstairs on the table next to the feather bed. Holding the framed likeness of the two elven youngsters and reflecting that he was still just a bit weak—only a little, though—from the attempt on his life, Flint eased himself into the overstuffed chair that waited at one side of the fireplace. Propping his legs on a footstool and gazing alternately at the portrait and the toy robin he’d given Ailea, he let his thoughts wander.
He’d arrived back home two nights ago to find his toy hutch cleared of everything but the soldiers. In the center of the table, however, Fionia had left him a chunk of rose quartz, fuzzy with lint and smudged with something that smelled suspiciously like grape jam.
What had the child said? “Ailea was excited. She kept saying, ‘Now it all makes sense. The scar. The “T.” The air. Now I understand.’ ”
“The scar. The ‘T.’ The air.” Flint settled deeper into the chair and gazed at the painting. “The scar. The ‘T.’ The air,” he murmured. “The air.”
Suddenly, with a shout of “Reorx!” that brought the guards crashing through the front and back doors, Flint leaped to his feet. What met the guards’ eyes was the sight of a dwarf hugging a portrait and chanting, “The air, the air, the air!”
But the guard outside Tanis’s palace chambers was adamant. No one was to be allowed in to visit the half-elf. Even the guard saw Tanis only when he allowed a kitchen elf to set a tray of food just inside the door and collect the old tray—and even then the half-elf often stayed out of sight at the back of the room.
“How am I supposed to gather evidence if I can’t talk to Tanis about it?” the dwarf demanded, waving the painting in front of the guard’s face. “Well?”
The guard, nearly as old as Porthios, was unshakable. “The Speaker left orders for no visitors,” he repeated.
“He didn’t mean to shut me out, you doorknob!”
The guard’s face grew even more stubborn. “Go talk to the Speaker, then.”
“I will!” Flint promised. “And I’ll be back!”
But the dwarf had no better luck outside the Speaker’s anteroom at the Tower.
“He’s in seclusion,” one guard explained, “meditating and praying, as part of the Kentommen. Absolutely no visitors unless a crisis of state develops. Interrupting him now could mean canceling the Kentommen.”
The dwarf practically threw the portrait on the floor in his ire. “This is a crisis of state! I’m in a state of crisis, by Reorx! Now open that door.” He advanced threateningly toward the guards …
And suddenly found himself facing twin short swords held by a pair of grim-faced palace guards. “Sorry, Master Fireforge,” one said.
Flint threw up his hands in despair. “Now what?” He stalked away down the corridor. “You elves and your traditions!” he shouted back.
He returned to the palace. There he found a spot on the steps and sat down to do some meditating of his own. Solostaran, now in seclusion, was the only one who could order the palace guards to admit him to Tanis’s room. But the Speaker was in seclusion—unless, Flint assumed, Qualinesti was attacked by minotaurs or some such thing.
Porthios, who probably would not have aided the dwarf anyway, was under guard in the Grove, not to be disturbed for anything less than another Cataclysm. Gilthanas had pledged not to help Tanis in any way, and Laurana hadn’t spoken a friendly word to the half-elf in more than a month.
Flint sighed. What a prime selection of helpers. Not for the first time, he wondered if it was time to move on to another spot in Ansalon, someplace with ale that didn’t taste like rainwater and wine that didn’t leave a dwarf reeking of blossoms.
Someplace like Solace, perhaps.
The dwarf threw that thought off, however, and reviewed the candidates. If Gilthanas even bothered to listen to the dwarf’s entire idea, the neophyte guard almost certainly would raise an alarm that would scare off the murderer until another time—most likely until after Tanis had been banished. Which would not help the half-elf at all.
That left …
“Laurana, I have to talk to you,” Flint said through the closed door.
“Go away, Master Fireforge,” came the peevish reply.
“It’s about Tanis.”
A pause. Then the same voice, a bit less ill-humored, was heard. “I don’t want to hear about Tanis.
“Fine,” Flint groused. “I’ll just let him die without speaking to you one last time. I’ll let you know when the funeral is. In case you’re interested in attending.” He stomped on the marble floor, loudly at first, then gradually more softly.
The door swung open. “Flint, wait!” Laurana called, dashing into the corridor, past the dwarf.
“I figured that might work,” Flint said smugly from next to her doorway. He traipsed into Laurana’s chambers.
The elf swung around and faced the dwarf, then stalked back into the small sitting room, a common feature in the palace’s private chambers; it was outfitted with fireplace, small table, and two straight chairs before the fire, one of which already held Flint comfortably ensconced. She slammed the door upon entering.
Her scowl gradually turned to a look of confusion as Flint sketched in the background that he’d sorted out. He concluded, “Then I realized ‘the heir’!”
But the princess still looked mystified. “The air?”
“The heir,” Flint corrected her. “That’s what Ailea was saying. The portrait she held was of Gilthanas and Porthios. The murderer, the one I now believe slew Lord Xenoth and Eld Ailea, intends to kill the Speaker’s heir, Porthios.”
If he’d been hoping for a big response, Flint was to be disappointed. Laurana just sat there, stroking the edges of the pale yellow cloak she’d thrown over her gown.
“But we’re all his heirs,” she objected. “Me, Gilthanas, and Porthios. Which one?”
Flint sat back. He’d been thinking in terms of Porthios all along. Why not Gilthanas and Laurana as well? Someone seeking to move up the ascendancy to become Speaker would have to eliminate them, too. Pieces of the puzzle were missing, but Flint still had a day to reveal the slayer before the Speaker would renew his vow to banish Tanis.
The seeds of another idea sprouted in his brain. “What better time to kill Porthios than at his own Kentommen?” the dwarf asked.
“What better time to kill all of us?” Laurana asked reasonably. “We’ll all be together in the Tower at the same time. But why, Flint? And anyway, the suspect can’t be an elf. We don’t do things like this.” She turned away from him and faced the fire.
Flint sat a few moments, gazing at the princess’s silhouette. “Ah, lass, you’ve seen so little of the world.”
She still objected, rising and pacing on the hearth rug in her agitation. “You want me to get you past the guard to see my father. But you don’t have enough evidence to warrant my interrupting the Speaker and canceling the Kentommen,” she said heatedly. “Your only evidence is your guess about what Eld Ailea was thinking right before she died.”
“But don’t you see?” he boomed. “ ‘The heir’! And she was holding the heirs’ portrait!”
“If I order the guards to let you in and it turns out that this is all nothing but an elderly midwife’s fantasy, my father …” Her voice faltered, and she grew pale. “But if I don’t, and something bad really does happen …” She sagged into the chair. “I’m too young to be making these kinds of decisions!” she complained.
Flint watched her, realizing that he was viewing the beginning of the metamorphosis of a spoiled little girl into an elf woman with great strength—if she’d only let herself show it. She jumped to her feet and resumed pacing.
“Why, Flint?” she asked. “Why would someone want to kill the Speaker’s heirs? Not that I believe you for a moment,” she hastily added.
“Greed,” Flint suggested. “Vengeance. Insanity. Unrequited love. This isn’t the kind of scheme someone comes up with overnight, you know. I’d guess the murderer has been working on this for years.”
“Well, then …” Laurana faltered again. “Then he’s probably someone we know.”
“Well, certainly,” Flint snapped. “What did you think?”
They glared at each other for a long moment, then Laurana looked away and softly said, “It won’t help Tanis if we argue, you know.”
Flint grunted. Then, more quietly, he asked, “How close is Tyresian in ascendancy?”
“To the Speakership?” Laurana looked surprised. “He’s of the Third House. We are of the First.”
“That leaves the members of the Second House?”
Laurana nodded absently. Flint pressed on. “How close is Tyresian in ascendancy, if he doesn’t marry you?”
“Oh, about twelfth or thirteenth in line,” she replied, then narrowed her eyes. “You don’t honestly think it’s Tyresian … Why, he’s a member of the nobility!”
Deciding that Laurana still had a lot to learn about life, Flint abandoned the tack he’d been taking.
“How safe is Porthios?” he asked.
Laurana faced him again. “There are more than a dozen guards around the Grove. They can’t see Porthios, but they could hear him if he called. I don’t think anyone could sneak in, with them there.”
Flint rose and strolled around the anteroom. Across the mantlepiece, Laurana kept a collection of whimsical dragon figurines. He picked up a golden one and examined it. “And Gilthanas will be with his regiment tonight? He’ll be safe there, at least.”
“Oh no, Flint,” Laurana objected. “Gilthanas will be keeping a vigil at the Kentommenai-kath all night.”
The phrase sounded familiar, but Flint had been exposed to a plethora of new elven terms in the past few days. “The Kentommenai-kath?”
“It’s the spot overlooking the River of Hope, west of Qualinost,” she explained.
Flint remembered; that was where he’d picnicked with Tanis and almost fallen to his death. “Gilthanas will have a guard with him, certainly,” he said, bending one of the legs of the figurine. The softness of the metal proclaimed it to be pure gold. Laurana gently took the little dragon from him, straightened the leg, and returned the piece to the mantle.
“Gilthanas will have an escort from Qualinost to the Kentommenai-kath,” she explained, seating herself again. “The guards will leave him, and he’ll remain alone at the spot until sunrise. Then he will return to Qualinost alone, arriving for the final portion of the Kentommen.”
Flint felt a hand of ice snake around his spine. “He’ll be alone?”
Laurana’s already pallid face became whiter. Her reply, when it came at last, was not a question. “He’ll be in danger, won’t he.”
He waved her to silence and leaned both arms against the fireplace, staring into the flames. Finally, he turned and leaned over the chair where Laurana waited.
“Laurana,” Flint said, “do you trust me?”
After a pause, she nodded. Her hair glittered in the firelight.
“Then listen,” he said. “I have a plan.”
Chapter 26
The Ruse
Two hours before midnight a golden-haired figure in an aqua gown shot with silver threads appeared in the corridor outside Tanis’s door and flashed a dazzling smile at the guard.
“Hello,” she said, then hesitated prettily, a movement she’d been practicing in the mirror in her room for the past hour.
The guard blushed. Lauralanthalasa knew he’d seen her from afar before, of course, but he’d never been this close to the Speaker’s daughter.
“Uh,” he said. “Hello.”
She smiled again. “Aren’t you supposed to say ‘Who goes there?’ ” she asked lightly.
The honey-blond elf, about Gilthanas’s age, swallowed and grinned lopsidedly. “But … I know who you are,” he whispered. “Um, so why ask?”
“Oh.” Laurana let her eyelids droop, then gave him a sidelong glance. “That’s very wise.”
Her voice oozed admiration—just the amount that Flint had declared necessary. “The guard will never buy it,” she’d argued, only the hour before in her quarters. “How stupid do you think the palace guards are?”
But the dwarf had insisted, saying only, “Trust me. I’ve seen the way the elven lads watch you.” She’d blushed. Flint had continued, “You’ll knock the guard out of his ceremonial boots.”
“Oh, Flint, don’t be ridiculous,” she’d snapped.
But now she wasn’t so sure. The guard looked positively weak in the knees. Ascribing his reaction to a mild case of indigestion from a rich Kentommen feast, she said sweetly, “I need to see Tanthalas, please.” She looked demurely away. (“Flint, he will never swallow this!” she’d protested. “Trust me,” the dwarf had repeated.)
The guard looked suddenly miserable. “I can’t let anyone in.”
Laurana let her features fall into disappointment. “Not even me?” she whispered. “It’s so very, very important.” She hoped her eyes were filling with the tears that Flint had declared crucial. But even more, she hoped she wouldn’t giggle.
Now came the dangerous move. She reached forward quickly and plucked the large key-ring out of the guard’s front pocket and smoothly slipped the key in the lock. “Oh, I’m sure it’s all right,” she said, letting a note of supplicatio
n enter her voice. “Here …”
But the guard reverted to training, grabbing her gently but firmly by her wrists and backing her away from the door. “I’m sorry, Princess, but I have my orders.” He sounded sincerely regretful, to Laurana’s surprise.
She took several tentative steps backward, drawing him farther from Tanis’s door. “Oh, I just hoped …” She let her voice trail off and thought very hard about the pet kitten who had died when she was a little girl. Thankfully, she felt tears finally rise in her green eyes, and she blinked, causing one huge drop to slip down her cheek.
The guard, obviously feeling like a heel, released her wrists and watched as she stepped femininely away, dabbing her already dry eyes with a linen kerchief. Just as he turned to resume his post at the door, she stumbled and cried out. (“Not loud enough to bring anyone else into the corridor!” Flint had demanded. “Just enough to convince the guard and cover a bit of noise.”)
The young guard was at her side in seconds, supporting her with an arm slipped quickly around her waist. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Oh, my ankle,” she whimpered, feeling like an idiot. “It’s these shoes.” (“Flint!” she’d protested. “I haven’t worn these shoes in years!” “All the better to fall off of,” he’d replied.) She whimpered again.
Behind the guard, a short figure with a rope ladder and a leather sack slung over one shoulder whisked around the corner, twisted the key to unlock Tanis’s door, and slipped inside, leaving the key in the lock. The door would be unlocked now, Laurana realized, hoping the guard wouldn’t try it when he returned the key ring to his pocket.
Laurana assured the guard that she would be able to make it back to her room. She thanked him profusely for his help. Then she walked slowly down the corridor and back to her room, trying to remember to limp.
